Ricky Carmichael: First Time I've Told This Story!

you were much more you know committed plugged in yeah you made the decision and you dove in head first yeah and and yeah so did ginn's deal and that was good and then wheels fall off fell off of that so i had monster that was that that was my p they were they were my people still today we are partners and i'll forever be thankful i've been with them since basically the inception of monster energy yeah uh 2004-5 i think and [Music] everything went sideways again and that ended and then i got an opportunity monster's like hey what do you want to do the next year and then i ended up doing the east series and i i rode for i drove for schrader it was freaking awesome man i love that dude time out though what happened again what went sideways again the whole yeah the whole thing yeah i think i think bobby i think bobby's investors said hey um we're out of money we're out of money and we're going to quit giving you money if you don't sell this race i don't remember that's how again ended he had the resorts right and he was all he was buying and funding everything and he was like hey man this is not going to work financially you got to stop so he had to that was it racing ended yeah all right so you went to schrader i went to schrader and i ran the east series and uh did pretty well did pretty well got a poll at south boston i can't remember what i got overall in the series but the crazy thing was the the dudes that i was racing at the time austin dillon trevor bain jeffrey um i want to say almarollo was in there probably for the di's development i actually flew up and met with dei one time with mark i flew up and we're gonna because i had the monster money and um we had a meeting and uh anyhow obviously it didn't work out and it i'm i'm glad that i drove for schroeder because it was just i had a lovely time it was so much fun and i learned a lot i felt like he gave me so much advice that i could bring along so race the east series that would have been 2008 i believe yeah 2008 and i'm sitting in charlotte airport and i get a call from kevin harvick and he says hey man uh what's happening next year i've been watching you on the e series and i ran good at loudon too i think it was shortly after loudon i think i got fourth loud in that year and um he says what are you doing next year he says we'd love to have you drive for for our truck team i'm like man that's awesome so eye contact monster and we fly out or we meet with with everyone at uh khi and they say hey this is what it's going to take for the full year but this is what we think you need to do and i ended up running a partial schedule and um yeah that was it that was it so at the after like that was 2009 after that they're like hey this is what it's going to cost to run the next year full time so that would have been 2010 2011 and monster's like well we we just have this much so you need to you need to figure out what you're going to do with this much we'd really like to see you in the full series so this at this time now steve turner starts a a race race car team and um he was going to be an alliance with khi and kevin hooked me up with him says hey he'll run you the full series for the money that you have and then i went and we did a two-year deal there with with steve which he was always great to me and um it was a great experience for sure and that's uh basically that was how that got going went good did some good things ran good some good good at some places i think the highlights of it is i got fourth at talladega fourth at dover i got the pole at atlanta led a bunch of laps at martinsville i absolutely loved martinsville because of the timing you know on the brakes off the brakes gas it really brought me back to to supercross yeah and having to be have that precision and timing and braking and if you didn't brake right or didn't let off right at the right time you paid consequences you know there are consequences as you know so this is gets into the next fun thing um at the end of my two-year deal at turner monster comes to me and says hey we're gonna sponsor kyle bush's nationwide team i'm like all right then they're like we want you to be the driver of the other the races that he doesn't do so however many xfinity races there was at the time let's just say well how many are there normally dale and a full season 36 36 so he was going to do let's just say 13 for kbm somewhere around there and i was gonna do the remainder and uh i'm like man this is an incredible opportunity got a great mentor guy knows how to drive everything's good we're sitting in a parking lot my manager and i am now my best friend he does all my stuff now and he's talking with rick wren and like okay that all the financial set and allowances blah blah blah and the plan and this is friday the morning of the truck race the fall truck race at texas and he says fly it will uh fly up to charlotte on tuesday and we'll sign this thing perfect so it's done i mean like this thing is done you're now you're figuring out when signatures and announcements yeah yeah yeah no like yeah we i'm flying up here to stay to be done yeah that that that night at the truck race kyle spins horn out and under caution laps yeah oh yeah the ron hornaday dust the major one oh yeah so sunday or monday might have been that they call and they're like hey can't come up to can't come up let's wait there's a lot of moving parts not sure how's busy kyle's busy what's monster gonna do is monster gonna step in if mars pulls out you know i mean i'm sure you guys heard everything happening and so i'm like oh man so anyhow oh that's right because mars was threatening to pull out of hit the whole smash like the cup everything kyle was effectively trying to fight for his career at that point yeah 100 after one weekend that's right yeah that's right so anyhow wheels get back on track so we're going to homestead everything's good we're like shooting high fives right and then i think i think kyle wrote raced the truck race that that night at homestead and like hey fly up on wednesday um you know that would give us a chance to do the xfinity banquet and the truck bank banquet down there i'm like okay no problem and uh so sunday if you go back this is when uh kurt was driving for pinsky yep and he had he had that issue with doc punch yes he cussed dr jerry punch out he's blow blew the engine in his car last race a year gets out in the garage and they're waiting on the interview to come live dr jerry punch is waiting on the booth to send it down to him and he's like hey curt sorry for holding you up and kurt just starts chewing his tail selling like all on video [Music] you were in front of me that just makes me feel a lot better doctor can you get this out of my face i haven't even seen this it sucks for you you have it it's worth it is it yeah it sucks you feel terrible for dr jerry punch yeah it was kurt at his lowest wow he might have actually seen that it was him at the end of his rope there so as you can imagine i mean now let you guys know what happens now but so i get another one of those calls on mondays like hey can't come up wednesday like groundhog day over here it's like okay now wait a second you are fair to ask though this is the this is not the right bush so i why am i worried about it yeah i kind of had like so penske fires kurt on monday right mm-hmm or tuesday let's say monday or tuesday anyhow he gets fired okay or released rather and um they call me i'm the next call and they're like hey um we're not don't come up wednesday there's some things that are going down and um we'll get back with you like all right and as soon as as soon as he got released i knew exactly what was going to happen they were going to hire him i mean it's his brother i don't know and he's better i would have still thought it was a coin flip because i'm not they may be brothers but they didn't always like each other well but at the same time i know monster likes to win and i know kyle does and and kurt's a hell of a lot better driver than i am way more accomplished so the writing was on the wall i wasn't stupid and i i appreciate monster even considering me to be a part of that program it went from the inception but as soon as that so anyhow long story short a few weeks went by and they they called me my boss sponsor call me says hey man this is this is the route we're gonna go and blah blah blah and i'm and i was totally understandable so at that point on boom i was dust in the wind my my four-wheel career ended boom just like that right like that you were almost in this car one of the before it was going to be a two-year deal one of the one of the better cars in this series and i have a question for you yeah i was going to be in that as two-year deal yeah and um it's going to be fun man because like danica was coming up and like i remember like monsters like dude if you could just run with her i think it's a it's a cool story you two are kind of on the same progression and you're coming from this complete you're then this end of the spectrum she's coming from there there was a story within the race but i i i want to ask you had i went there and it worked out and it being a startup team do you think that it it would have given me everything that i needed or would i've been better at a more established organization well i think that you know kyle's kyle's team at the time was uh you know so kyle would run his own car and then kyle would run gibbs stuff and you could then very very easily kind of compare where kyle's personal team was versus the cars that gibbs could provide him he could see a a difference in and how far kbm had to go to get where they wanted to be they eventually shut down his xfinity program for whatever reason uh but i had he maintained that program i think that he would have similar success as jrm you know he would be he could have maybe even became the joe gibbs bush you know outfit where joe's drivers would drive for kyle's team um and maybe kyle envisioned that happening one day but you would have uh you know you would have probably not it was it wasn't the very best car but it was a top 10 car you know and kyle could get in it and you could see how you know where he was dominant literally almost a lock to win in joe's car he would drive his car the next week and everybody could run with him and you could beat him you know that was the difference in in in his team at the time so i don't know how that would have worked out for you i really don't yeah you know that might have been a good experience it might have been it might have been a frustrating one or a difficult one the only one and they only won one race richmond right at richmond yeah and kurt's way better drivers than i am what's interesting is probably the difference in expectations i would imagine kyle would have an expectation regardless of your inexperience or whatever but like if you know he wants to win yeah monster said they just want you to be danica is that what you i mean that's that's that that's kind of what i got out of it i don't think that really matches up well like those two things i don't know okay yeah like monster's expectations and kyle's expectations right right you know i don't know i i it's shocking though i mean how did you how did you what did you do i think a lot of people in the in y'all's world always wondered like man what what happened right and like even even in my world people's like what what why'd you quit racing that's right you know and this is the first place this is the first time i've ever really told this story you know across the air and and and you know it's been so long now but so the next season yeah i was but i'm i'm done right so then i'm just hanging out but but i had brandon so and to this day i'm still i'm in brand ambassador for a lot of my sponsors still monster fox the apparel company that i always wore their gear i'm an ambassador for them triumph motorcycles now at the time i was still busy with suzuki being an ambassador for them riding their their race bikes and testing and development things things things like that dabbling a little bit at the super crosses and the tv but hold on a second you were done because you didn't have any other opportunities there however it's fair to say that you got a lot of opportunity i mean like people were calling you up why is casey kane even calling you up to offer a late model at the time why are these people doing that and so you had all these opportunities now you don't so how hard did you beat down the drum and knock on doors to go try to find another ride i didn't because i'm not that kind of guy i i i'm horrible at asking someone for hey man will you so you didn't even go to monster and say i know y'all are doing this thing with kurt and and but you know is there any opportunity for me to be anywhere i mean i may have but i don't i don't i knew like they they just said hey what was your i gotta ask you like out of all of the things that you did race in the late modeling you know in in florida trucks when did you have the most fun behind the wheel uh like what card in the e series and the xfinity series you enjoyed those cars i loved i always felt like i did better in the cars than i did in the trucks i think the way that they were shaped aero i mean i go back to the truck series and the guys that i was having to race hornaday skinner bodine i mean you name them i mean i mean those guys are aces man they raced in the cup series and then now they're racing the truck series and i'm i have literally zero four-wheel experience and i've grew up on dirt my whole life and i don't know anything about aerodynamics and as soon as i figured out arrow and how to pass and when to when to use it to your advantage it was too late it was like the last half of the year of the truck series and i was at that point it was it was over yeah but i i liked the xfinities i liked those cars i felt comfortable in those cars and then and then the the e series was a lot of fun as well if you like that conversation with ricky carmichael you ought to listen to the entire podcast the dale jr download is available on all major podcast platforms

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 486,948

Keywords: Dale Jr, Dale Jr Download, Dirty Mo Media, NASCAR, Ricky Carmichael

Id: iY7fs5ABJgQ

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/ChaseGordon1995]

Imagine if Kurt hadn’t went off on Dr Jerry Punch

[u/dmcgrew]

This was an awesome episode IMO. Didn't really think I'd be in to it since I'm not a big Motocross/Supercross fan but it was really insightful on both the Supercross and NASCAR sides. I learned a lot.

[u/[deleted]]

The goat

[u/Sturdevant]

Ahh so that's what happened. I always heard that Carmichael was the one that backed out bc he didn't want his brand attached to the Busch's Bros when they were at their worst.

[u/whathappenb]

I remember seeing someone on here say that Ricky's end in NASCAR was due to Kurt Busch's rage, interesting to hear the details

[u/sorkin_juice]

Totally forgets to say the name of the guy who won the championship that year, Matt Kobyluck.